Former President Donald Trump's one-time attorney Tim Parlatore clashed with MSNBC's Ari Melber on Friday over the issue of how the former president could effectively impeach the testimony of Michael Cohen, another former Trump attorney planning to give evidence against him in the Manhattan hush payment trial.
The dispute flared when Parlatore explained how the Trump camp could use yet another lawyer linked to Trump, Bob Costello — and Melber, himself a lawyer, was unconvinced.
"A Trump-connected lawyer who has his own credibility issues including publicly releasing what would have been attorney/client privileged information," said Melber. "But you're saying that that lawyer that represented Cohen, you're saying that could be useful as trial, why? Because he had that period of time and he would say this is the version of the story before the story changed again?"
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"He is able to give Michael Cohen nonpublic story at the time, when he had the most motivation to point the finger at Donald Trump, Michael Cohen signed a complete privilege waiver so he didn't release anything privileged and said this is the information that when the Southern District of New York was investigating this case, they interviewed Michael Cohen, then they interviewed Bob Costello and they had Michael Cohen sign a privilege waiver and then based on the information that Bob Costello gave them."
"That is why the U.S. attorney's office decided not to bring this case," he continued. "Because they knew they couldn't rely on the word of Michael Cohen. So even though—"
"Well, I have to jump in on this," Melber cut in. "Whether or not Cohen waived that for the purposes of his cooperation with the government, and I think most lawyers would say going out and talking about a former client and describing his mental anguish or potential alleged suicidal ideation is beyond the pale. And then two, it is a complex set of reasons why the SDNY didn't go forward with the wider case. That is the simplest way I could put it."
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